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February 2015

Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas on Monday endorsed an agreement of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT) laying down the legal status of NATO elements of control and command in Lithuania, the ministry said.

Currently, Washington is seeking to significantly strengthen its policy on post-Soviet states by strengthening NATO integration. It is being implemented in parallel with the direct support of the United States in the field of military, civil and social reforms.

During his visit to Ankara in December 2014, Vladimir Putin announced that South Stream—a large pipeline that would have carried Europe-bound Russian gas under the Black Sea and across Southeastern Europe—had been terminated. A major reason for South Stream’s cancellation was attributed to the exit from the project of Bulgaria, one of the key countries through which this pipeline would pass. Instead, Russia and its regional partners, including Turkey, are now discussing a new pipeline project—Turkish Stream, sometimes referred to as Turk Stream (Anadolu Agency Energy Terminal, December 2, 2014).

An ex-Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Austria who is also a former son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s President and a fugitive Kazakh tycoon Rakhat Aliyev has been found dead in the Austrian prison of Josefstadt, Tengrinews reports citing RIA Novosti. Aliyev was 52. According to preliminary information, it was a suicide.

With Latvia taking over the Presidency of the EU Council in first half of 2015, Central Asia will become a priority, said Chair of the European Parliament Delegation on cooperation with Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries Iveta Grigule in a Jan. 22 interview with The Astana Times in Astana.

During the government meeting at the Majilis, the lower chamber of Kazakhstan's Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Yerlan Idrissov has expressed concerns over the implementation of the agreement on Ukraine signed in Minsk, Tengrinews reports. The agreement is directed at the resolution of the crisis in Ukraine.

Fettered by Western sanctions, major Russian companies are looking for new opportunities in East Asia, pinning most of their hopes on China, the world’s second largest economy and Moscow’s closest political partner. And yet, private businesses and top managers of state-run companies are talking about numerous problems and risks stemming from the increased dependence on China. Minimizing them is a task that business and the government should tackle together.

More is known about rivers in the Amazon than Europe’s last wild waterways in the Balkans. But these unique ecosystems in southeast Europe could soon be gone, along with endangered species such as the Balkan lynx, if plans for over 2,000 dams go ahead, conservationists warn.